National Hate Crime Awareness Week – public meeting in Redbridge

Hate crime – crime driven by prejudices against certain groups in society – has never gone away. The police, the council and voluntary sector groups like us, have been supporting victims of hate crime every day in Redbridge. The reality of hate crime hit the headlines when there was a sharp increase in racist abuse and attacks in the weeks following the EU Referendum. Physical attacks, people saying things like “we voted out now get out” – verbally, on t-shirts, scrawled on the walls of community centres.

This spike included Redbridge where we had a dramatic increase in reported hate crime in July compared to the previous year. But over a longer period the situation seems to have calmed down here.

Other places have fared worse. Close to Redbridge, Harlow has had one of the worse experiences of hate crime with severe attacks on the Polish Community including a murder which appears to have been motivated by racism. But at the same time we have seen in Harlow and other places, people coming together to condemn hate crime and to defend vulnerable communities.

So we have called this public meeting. Speakers include the Secretary of Harlow Trades Council, A Polish organisations called RAZEM; which means Together, Muslim Engagement & Development (MEND), Redbridge Concern for Mental Health about disability hate crime, Redbridge Rainbow Community about homophobic and transphobic attacks and ourselves – Redbridge Equalities & Community Council.